How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one's name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Since a couple of people asked, here is the recipe for the tomato-bread salad I make. (I forgot to mention that it has tuna in it and I make it as a main course, but you could easily leave the tuna out.)

My comments: Play around with the proportions if there's something you like more/less. Nice ripe juicy tomatoes are best, so that the bread soaks up the juices. Day-old bread works really well, too. You want a good, chewy/crusty bread, so that it doesn't dissolve too quickly (this salad is usually very good the next day, too, but if you let it go too long the bread does tend to get a big soggy. Myself, I have a bad habit of eating all the bread out of it first, so I'm left with the veggies!). I tend to chop the cucumber and onion, rather than slice, so that the pieces are roughly the same size/shape. And if you're not as concerned about fat, and you are including the tuna, what tastes really good is using Spanish tuna packed in olive oil (the brand I've seen is Cento), and using oil drained from the cans as the oil for the salad.

Oh, and finally, let your feline friends lick out the tuna cans and the drained water from the tuna as well. Mine show up when I start chopping the tomatoes. ;-)

Sunday, July 09, 2006

I started this entry in the Upstate Capital airport, and it got eaten. Grrr.

Anyway, now I'm home, and I'm sleepy as hell, and don't know if this will make much sense or if I'll even have the energy to finish. But I had a GREAT weekend. My friend's wedding was lovely, I got to catch up with some wonderful, wonderful friends, and it was an excellent break.

Cool Lawyer Friend picked me up from my hotel in her rental, the decidedly-old-person Chevy Malibu (which was not an impressive car, partly because someone appears to have poured half a can of paint all over the front seat), and we sped (defining "sped" loosely) over various hill-like mountains to Wedding Town (which is also College Town). We checked into my motel, which was indeed spartan (it had a whiff of that New-England-summer-cottage-damp-smell) but serviceable (the owner had a lovely black Lab, and when I commented on the dog's cuteness, the owner said, "Yeah, he likes women." Ummm...okay....), then we dumped her luggage at her hotel and wandered around town. We got lunch at the sandwich place where we ate at all the time during college, and I got the same sandwich that was the pinnacle of my culinary world at the time (and I discovered that my tastes have improved. Don't get me wrong, it's a decent sandwich, but...it's a sandwich). Then we got ice cream (mmmmmm - ice cream), bought various items of college-branded apparel (my college was notorious for all its students walking around in clothing with the name of the college all over it - my senior year, the local police did a whole bunch of open container busts, and the joke was that all the police had to do to go undercover was wear a College sweatshirt and jeans), and finally wandered all over various parts of campus, especially ones to which we'd never gone while we were at school there. (I was thinking about how differently I might remember my college spaces if I'd been an athlete, for instance - those were places on campus where I NEVER went.)

Then it was time to get all dolled-up and go to the wedding, which was beautiful and heartfelt and thoughtfully planned, and everyone looked beautiful and happy and all that good stuff. And I have to confess that I also thought, I am so glad that I didn't do that. (For those of you who haven't seen me mention this before, I got married in a judge's office.) Don't get me wrong - I don't have any problems with weddings in principle - everyone should do whatever works for them. I get why people would want to invite their family and friends to take part in this ritual marking a major milestone in their lives - and the milestone was a big deal for me, too, even if it was only LDH and me in front of a judge and an assistant narcotics D.A. for about three minutes. Myself, that ritual was just about me and LDH - I didn't want a whole bunch of people looking on (says the woman who writes about her life on the internet). The privacy of it was a big thing for me. Anyway, this is not at all to say that everyone else should do it this way - I'm so happy when my friends have weddings that really express who they are and how they feel about each other. I've just never seen a wedding that's made me regret not having one.

Friday, July 07, 2006

So, I'm sitting in a hotel in a northern capital city, en route to my friend's wedding tomorrow. It turns out that my very cool friend also attending the wedding gets into this town tomorrow morning, so we're driving out to the wedding together, so I don't even have to rent a car! I have to say, this city looks a lot better than it did when I was in college. Then, it was an armpit of a depressed upstate town; now, it looks like it's enjoyed some rejuvenation. There are a lot of nice nineteenth-century gothic-y brownstone-y buildings being used again, including a Masonic temple across from my hotel. The Masons - I don't know, I just don't get the whole phenomenon. There's a massive building in my current town dedicated not just to the Masons, but the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. Who knew there was such a thing?

It's really strange to be back in this part of the country - I'm not even sure when I was here last. I went back to Wedding Town for someone else's wedding, probably seven or eight years ago now? That may have been the last time. Anyway, I so miss the northeast. When I was sitting outside waiting for the shuttle to the hotel, a woman and her kid came out and sat down and the mom said, "So it's hot here, too." I nearly burst out laughing because the high here today was about 78 degrees. I know there was a time when I considered that kind of hot, but boy, have my horizons broadened... This part of the country just feels like home to me - the climate is right, the topography is right, the buildings are right, even the people feel right.

As for my eventful evening: some room service, Monsters, Inc. on the TV, and I gave in to my frustration with my roots and dyed my hair (I liked the caramel-y highlights, but the roots were bugging me so much, I went chestnut-y/auburn. Maybe not the wisest thing to do this the night before a big event, but I'd used this color before). In a moment I will paint my toenails. Oh, the maintenance we undertake! It's a good thing I enjoy it.

I think most of my Friday poetry blogging selections can be found in high school and college anthologies across the country - they're not especially obscure or original or any of that. But they are the poems I like, that have shaped me somehow. In any case, I've always liked today's poem - that total twist in the last line - but it makes a great deal more sense to me after the last few years than it ever did in high school.

Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,We people on the pavement looked at him:He was a gentleman from sole to crown,Clean favored and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,And he was always human when he talked,But still he fluttered pulses when he said,"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich--yes, richer than a king--And admirably schooled in every grace:In fine, we thought that he was everythingTo make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,And went without the meat and cursed the bread;And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

So, I am booked to attend a college friend's wedding this weekend, for which I am genuinely excited, and which has occasioned the purchase of the cool red shoes below (I had always hoped to be in this friend's wedding, actually, but since we fell out of contact for about two years in there, I guess that wasn't to be. There was no hostility, mind you - it was just circumstances, probably more on her part than on mine - but it ruled out the being in the wedding thing). Except that I ran into a problem today:

The cat-sitter couldn't make it.

Now, this was genuinely bad, not because it screwed up my plans (though it did - I'll be away too long just to leave food and hope for the best; for one thing, that would be a lot of food, for another, with three cats you need pretty regular catbox cleaning, and finally, Eldest Cat needs medication every morning and evening. Now you understand why I pay a professional cat-sitter rather than impose on my friends!), but more importantly, because her stepfather is in the hospital and she's camped out in the ICU. So everyone send good thoughts her way, okay?

But also, being me, I'd left it till the last minute to get in touch with her (she's always been able to come in last minute before), so here I was, the day before I was supposed to leave, with no cat care.

Thankfully, LDH to the rescue!

He has gallantly volunteered to drive here and look after the cats this weekend, instead of attending the wedding himself. Which I feel very bad about, except that since this was the wedding of my college friend and I won't even know that many people, let alone him knowing them, I'm not sure it's upsetting him terribly to miss it. (He can hang out in the A/C and OD on cable TV this weekend, including the Tour and Wimbledon.)

The sort of good thing: the plan had been for me to spend tomorrow driving to LDH's apartment, then we would spend Friday driving most of the way to the wedding town, finishing the drive on Saturday morning. We'd then drive back the whole day Sunday (so LDH could make it back for work on Monday), and I'd drive back here on Monday. It would be something like 40 hours in the car for fewer than 24 hours in Wedding Town. I love spending time with LDH, and road trips with him are usually a lot of fun, but that was going to be a fucking lot of driving.

The problem is, if you take LDH out of that driving equation, it doesn't hold together, because he is the uber long-distance driver, not me, and I find it pretty exhausting to drive the 6-7 hours each way to LDH's place, let alone the 24+ hours of additional driving to Wedding Town. I wasn't sure I could carry it off, and he wasn't excited about me trying. What to do? Flying at this juncture would cost $600+, and we're so broke these days - I was already imagining bailing on the whole event, returning the outfit I bought (and hence saving even more money) and just getting some sleep this weekend (it didn't help that I felt like crap when I was trying to figure this out - I think I was running a fever).

And then I remembered the glory that is frequent flyer miles.

So now I am flying from my home airport, 20 minutes away, to the podunk airport an hour away from Wedding Town. At entirely convenient, even attractive times. I will leave Friday morning and get back Sunday night.

For $10.

And I managed to rent a car for the weekend for about $55.

And I won't be paying the cat-sitter $88.

And I don't have to run around like a maniac tonight, trying to clean the apartment and do laundry and get ready while I feel like crap. (I can do that tomorrow night.)

It will suck not to see LDH this weekend, this is true. But otherwise, I think I'm looking forward to the trip now even more than I was before!_____________________________________

Bonus conversation (patented by Phantom) to show how cool my college friends are:

One of my dear friends had e-mailed me to fill me in on the dirt about our 15th reunion (yes, the FIFTEENTH, I am ANCIENT) (I wasn't able to go because I was in Turkey or somewhere else in the Mediterranean). She had mentioned that one of our acquaintances had, ahem, expanded in girth since college. When I wrote her back, I said that I would see her at this upcoming wedding, but that she should be kind, since I'd gained weight since moving here, let alone since I graduated. Anyway, this is what she wrote me in response:

Haven't you heard? We all look exactly the same as we did in
1991. To wit: of course I have no need of Botox. Of course I do
not have a single gray hair crying desperately for camouflage. And
most importantly, of course gravity has been kind to me! So
clearly there is no chance that you have gained even a single ounce. All I can say is, your scale must be wrong. Throw that thing out,
pronto.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

First of all, thank you to everyone for your kind birthday wishes! I had a very pleasant day, nothing incredibly special, but nothing bad, and that's just fine with me. Leaning toward the special side: lunch with one of my favorite colleagues and his awesome wife, which I enjoyed (however, I didn't tell them it was my birthday, because I never know how to make such an announcement out of the blue without sounding like I'm sucking for felictations or gifts or something, so I can't really call it a birthday celebration). And LDH came home in the evening, and is here until Tuesday, so it feels like we actually live together again! (On a normal weekend he gets here Friday evening, spends the day Saturday, and then leaves Sunday - it's so nice not to feel like we have to cram everything in to one day.)

I consider today a success because I actually left the apartment, which I didn't do once yesterday. Given that the temperature's been hovering in the mid- to high-90s, I'm sure you can all understand why. Around lunch today, however, I went to the complex's fitness room and actually! exercised!, and even enjoyed it, because I had the room to myself, so I didn't have to worry about feeling like a dork. I'm competitive enough that I either like exercising in a large group that keeps me from bailing because I don't want to look like a wimp, or utterly alone. It's hard to get the fitness room to myself, but I think people were either away for the holiday, or just relaxing because it's Sunday. I did see quite a few people giving themselves skin cancer by the pool, however. (Sorry, I know that sounds incredibly judgmental, but I'm just so not into the lying out thing anymore. And I have to say that all the women out there were young, tan, blond, and wearing tiny bikinis. I think they were what LDH likes to call crispy ladies.)

Then later today, LDH and I went to see The Devil Wears Prada, which I really enjoyed, because after all, there are lots of pretty dresses! And boots! And other cool clothes that inspire the use of exclamation points! Seriously, I want to dress like Anne Hathaway in that movie - but then, I'd also like to have the size-6 ass that everyone in her character's fashion mag characterizes as fat. (And apparently, real fashionistas consider the movie a fashion dud. Oh, well, I never said I had couture taste.) But I hadn't read the book, and I know some people complain that the Meryl Streep character has been toned down. I completely agreed with A. O. Scott's review in the Times that the movie is much more sympathetic to the fashion industry than critical of it. Although one of the main points of the movie is that the heroine's job starts to consume her/change her values, my reaction to her boyfriend and another friend, whose roles were to highlight what's changed about the heroine, was that they were drips who need to grow up. Of course, as an academic my perspective on workaholism and working to get ahead may be slightly skewed...

The most hysterical thing, though, about The Devil Wears Prada, was something that the movie's creators could not have anticipated: Meryl Streep's character SO reminded me of...my graduate advisor. Seriously. This was my conversation with LDH:

"Did she remind you of anyone?"

"Cruella de Ville?"

"Well, yeah, but besides Cruella de Ville?"

Silence. And then - "Ohhhhhh - Oh, my God."

"Yup."

And unfortunately, since I am not as smart and resourceful as Anne Hathaway's character, nor did I have Simon Baker to turn to in a pinch, the result was not "a plucky heroine succeeds against all odds while staying true to herself" story, but pharmaceuticals and therapy. And a tenure-track job, so I guess I can't complain.

Okay, this has ended up a really random entry - it's been that kind of a weekend. Lots of watching Wimbledon and the Tour de France, and not much else. Some work must get accomplished tomorrow!